Steel of the Marrow
by Vashagud
Summary: After a mission gone horribly wrong, Zack tries to pick up the pieces. But putting them back together is another thing entirely. Sephiroth/Zack.


_Prologue_

Zack can hear his footsteps; feel his toes pressing down in the slick spaces in the front of his boots. Mud, algae, maybe some kind of small fish could be still trapped in there, he doesn't know. All he knows is that he is terrified, and people are looking at him. But he doesn't see a single face, just the white, white walls. Someone's telling him not to pace, to sit down, but he can't, even the hairs on his arms are standing up, and he tries to smooth them down with a ferociously nervous sweep of his hand.

He has goosebumps all over.

He cracks his knuckles and turns in the circle he is pacing, looks at the white walls. He has never liked the color white, has always thought it was just the absence of color and that sure is true now as he can't get the picture of his General's face from mind. His face had been so _pale_, totally and completely _bloodless._

He thinks about wading through the deep marsh, pulling Masamune from the hard clinging mud. How the weight of it felt like a body in his arms. And then Zack stops mid pace, looks up into the white fluorescent lights. He thinks about the shimmering lash of Sephiroth's hair above him as the Zolom swung its head, mouth clamped firmly around his legs.

He could be dreaming.

He thinks about the wet sound of flesh tearing, and it hits him that all this time he never imagined something like that was even possible. General Sephiroth, and a furious fire cast just one second too late. General Sephiroth, sunken into the marsh, bleeding out red into the brown water. Zack had gone for him instead of trying to finish the monster off, and it was a mistake that almost cost them both their lives. If there hadn't been backup-he didn't know.

"Zack." His hands were shaking, and he could remember how Sephiroth had looked at him with something like incomprehension in his too distant eyes. He'd been laid out on the stretcher, ashen while medics in rain slicks rushed him forward, all with wide eyes.

He didn't believe it either, he didn't believe Sephiroth could even look like that. Sephiroth wasn't supposed to _look like that._

Zack wished Angeal was around to tell him what to do. He was glad he wasn't because what kind of soldier couldn't back up _General Sephiroth_?

"Zack Fair?" He snapped out of it, found one of the doctors standing in front of him expectantly.

"That's-" he coughed, just noticed how dry his tongue and throat were. "That's me."

"Come with me then."

He hated hospitals, the smell was always the same stifled, depressive kind and the air was always so thick. He pulled at his collar, and it settled back damply against his neck. He hated hospitals. Sephiroth couldn't be dead, they would've told him already if that had happened, right? He told himself that there was no way they'd let him take such an endless walk down such a long, sterile hallway just to show him a body. They wouldn't.

The doctor stopped and stood in front of a closed door.

"Lieutenant," the doctor started and Zack was wary of the sudden formality, wanted to say that Zack was fine even though some weeks prior he'd said _Lieutenant _to himself over and over just to taste the word and title more thoroughly. He'd worked so hard for it. He'd called his mom and everything. "Lieutenant Fair, despite the efforts of our best doctors-"

There was that same incredulous look even in the doctor's eyes, and Zack couldn't take it anymore. He rushed passed him and into the room, and Sephiroth was indeed there.

He lie with his eyes closed, hooked up to a number of machines. But there was one Zack halted at, pressed his fingers against. The one monitoring his heart was beeping, the line spiking and falling. It was the best thing he'd seen in hours.

"He's alive." He breathed, and he turned to see the still sullen face of the doctor behind him.

"Yes. We were able to stabilize him but-"

"But he's _alive." _Zack said smiling weakly. He patted a leg through the thin blankets, unsure but uncaring if Sephiroth would appreciate it in a waking state. "When can he leave?" he said, knowing he was jumping ahead of himself.

"Whenever you are ready to take him." Zack stilled.

"What?" The doctor swallowed.

"The injuries sustained were more profound than expected, and it is very likely that not even earlier treatment could have made a difference. Not even heightened levels of mako can repair such…extensive damage."

"What are you saying?" Zack said, now giving his full attention.

"I'm saying that beast's jaws may have locked in such a way, that on the moment of impact all major function in General Sephiroth's legs were lost. "

Zack stood, stunned and silent.

"Are you serious?" he said, breathlessly. "Are you…there's no way that-" Zack stuttered.

"He is paralyzed from the waist down. " The doctor wrung his hands. "We thought he would rather hear it from a comrade."

Silently, Zack turned back to look down on Sephiroth's sleeping form again. He touched the heart monitor, and he didn't feel as good he did before.

He heard the doctor's retreating footsteps, the obligatory apology for there being nothing to be done, and sat down in a nearby chair. He held his head and replayed everything in his head over and over again.

Wanting to turn back time was a ridiculous thought now, a thought too familiar to people dealing with damage done in instants. But Zack couldn't help himself, he wondered_ if_, he wondered about the slim seconds it probably would've taken to make things better.

He thought that if he had a handful of instants, he'd spread them out in all those crucial seconds, just to make it better.

Author's Note: So, my mom is the initial inspiration for this fic. XD She recently injured herself in a killer bootcamp and landed herself in a wheelchair (is walking fine now, because she's a _tough_ cookie) and I was struck by a rather dramatic Sephiroth/Zack plot bunny. Also, I've been wanting to attempt something multichaptered. I don't anticipate it being that long though.


End file.
